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by mibbitier 5107 days ago
That's incorrect.

If your TV crashed would you blame the TV program you were watching at the time?

People know the difference between software and content. Content should never be able to crash software.

4 comments

I agree with you in that content should never be able to crash software.

I disagree with you TV example, however. If the same TV show repeatedly crashed one of the most popular TV models, consumers would blame the show.

well, that would be stupid
Not necessarily - I don't understand how software interacts with, for example, digital cable. I've seen certain channels crash my cable box before. It wouldn't be that surprising to see a certain show reliably crash the cable box.
A topic very much like this one makes up a chapter in the wonderful book Godel, Escher, Bach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

Two characters are in a race: one to build an impervious record player, the other to design a record that - when played - sets up feedback in the record player sufficient to destroy it.

It's a stunningly simple intro to a fairly deep topic: NP completeness, input validation, etc.

"If your TV crashed would you blame the TV program you were watching at the time?"

I'm not positive, but I believe that it's possible for TV shows to crash TVs, which is why there are standards in that specify what kind of content you are allowed to broadcast:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast-safe

I had an episode of a TV show on videotape that literally crashed my TV. I'm not kidding. Whenever the show got to a certain point the TV would turn off.

I'm 99% sure that it was something invalid in the closed captioning.

if my TV shut down every time i tried to watch one specific show and never any other time, i might blame that show, yes.

people should know the difference, but they don't.